


Don't Get Attached

by editoress



Category: Trollhunters (Cartoon)
Genre: Changelings, Gen, Introspection, Lots of characters mentioned, Stricklake - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 08:27:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12295278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/editoress/pseuds/editoress
Summary: It was the only wisdom passed down to them by their own.  A look at changelings, and at Stricklander in particular.





	Don't Get Attached

**Author's Note:**

  * For [a3rie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a3rie/gifts).



> Happy birthday, friend!

_Don't get attached._   It was the only wisdom passed down to them by their own.

A changeling's venture to the outside world lasted only as long as their current familiar.  And no matter how careful the trolls were, a human lifespan was still a human lifespan—inconveniently short, only a single century at best.  So they did not get very much time out of the darklands they had never quite learned to call home.  A changeling was compacted into a smaller body; they left; and in a few decades, they returned, different than before.

At the time, Stricklander had no name of his own.  He had neither earned nor found one.  He was called mostly _runt_ or _brat_ —by the changelings, anyway.  The trolls never addressed the changelings by any name, if they could help it.

Stricklander had had a particularly rough seventy or so years.  In part this was because he knew his time was coming, and though anything had to be better than this place, he had little idea of what to expect.  The rest of his discontentment was because the only being he cared to see most of the time had long been in the human realm.

But one day, a familiar voice called out, "Ho, dagger."

 _Dagger_ was what he called Stricklander.  It was achingly close to a name.  Stricklander turned to see another changeling—a little older, a little heavier, a little sharper in his demeanor.  "You're back!"

"You can call me Forest now," the newly named Forest informed him nonchalantly.

Stricklander nodded seriously.  He had heard of forests.  "How did it go?"

Forest eyed him for a moment, expression unreadable.  "It went."  He waved a hand.  "Last I heard, Spain had just sent somebody to sail around the back way to the East.  And then it was over.  Damn shame.  I would've loved to have seen the idiot land on the wrong continent."

The younger changeling hadn't the slightest idea what he was talking about.  "I'm asking you what it was _like_ ," he clarified.

"Oh," Forest said.  "You'll find out."  He brushed past Stricklander.

"Useful, thanks," Stricklander sneered at his back.

"I'm not in the mood to tell you stories," Forest retorted.

Stricklander stormed after him.  He had too much dread in him to let it lie.  "Is there a reason you can't just _tell_ me?"

"Stop pestering me, _brat_!"

Stricklander stopped.  He was hurt, _stupidly_ hurt, by the reversion to the common term thrown at him by everybody else, made worse by the knowledge Forest had done it on purpose.  "I see."

Forest eyed him warily over his shoulder.

"If you're too stupid to have learned anything," Stricklander continued icily, "you need only say so."

"No stupider than you," Forest bit out, steely.  Stricklander bared his teeth, but before he could fire back, Forest said, "You want advice?"  He turned back around and strode toward him.  He slowed, expression softening just a bit, when Stricklander angled his shoulders defensively.  "Come here.  Come on, dagger."

Stricklander couldn't help cooperating at the almost-name, like a starving animal being offered food.  Forest cupped the back of his neck.  His yellow eyes blazed with some sorrow Stricklander didn't recognize.

"Let me tell you the only thing you need to know to come back from the human world in one piece," Forest said gravely.  "Got it?  The only thing.  _Don't get attached_."

Forest was never quite the same after coming back from the human world, but then, no one was.  They all heard that very same piece of advice from returning changelings over the centuries.  By the time Stricklander underwent layers and layers of spells and was sent out, he had been warned a hundred times.

Still he failed.

They all did, at least once, in their own quiet ways.  Nomura had a sculpting mentor she only ever spoke of while he was alive.  Otto took to the piano like it was a lover and turned mournful and twitchy whenever he returned to the darklands.  Around the turn of the eighteenth century, Stricklander, who was properly named by then, had a sister.

So often, Gunmar's lessons were still fresh.  It was being called _impure_ ; it was conditional loyalty; it was focusing, above all, on survival.  And then the wisdom of their fellow changelings came easily.  It was them against the world.

But when Caroline followed him everywhere and laughed at his terrible jokes, Stricklander felt something akin to when Forest had given him that mischievous half-grin and called him _dagger_.  She looked up to him unerringly.  He couldn't have shaken her if he wanted to.  And her sons, his nephews, he was their _favorite_ —

It was dangerous for a changeling to feel like they might belong somewhere.  It distracted from Gunmar's will, and worse, from the reality of their situation.

When Stricklander was pulled back to the darklands, he knew Caroline and her sons wouldn't be there by the time another familiar was found.  So he gave the other changelings the only protection he could: _don't get attached_.  Still some of them learned the hard way.

What Stricklander learned was to be sly about it.  He cared, but not too much.  He smiled and listened and guided, but it never crossed over from his human life to his changeling mission.  He allowed himself a _little_ attachment, a _little_ belonging, so long as he kept it at a distance.  And so long as none of his brethren ever found out.

He thought Jim was going to be the one to ruin it.  A bright, hardworking boy who seemed a little lost himself, Jim sought his advice and accepted his teasing in a way he hadn't seen in two hundred years.  It was too easy to fall into the role of mentor.  To easy to forget what happened last time.  He got an unpleasant reminder with the passing of the amulet, but Stricklander was a _changeling_ , adept at balancing lives.  Surely he could balance this, too.  He could play both parts.

So it wasn't Jim who cinched it.  In truth, young Jim pushed him to the edge, and Barbara pulled him right over.

Barbara was lovely and practical and brilliant.  Most of all she cared, so _unbelievably_ fiercely, and it was as if with a smile and a squeeze of his hands she shattered centuries and centuries of _don't get attached_.  She looked him in the eye and confided in him and he forgot it all.

In the final hour of Gunmar's plans, Stricklander became incurably attached.


End file.
